I have a coffee table book at home that lists, day by day, what was happening in World War II from Hitler’s invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, until Japan’s surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. It also has lots of photos. The book has its shortcomings. I spotted a few misidentified photos and there are a couple of entries that may not be precisely accurate, but these are minor. The chronology plus the photos makes it valuable to me. One photograph shows an Iowa Class battleship firing a full nine-gun broadside.

When all was said and done, the speech President Barack Obama gave to school children across this country Tuesday proved to be more hype than substance — less political and more traditional.

School systems around the country were faced with the decision of how to handle the speech, which some claimed to be a political ploy to garner the support of this nation’s children apart from their parents’ input.

As students return to college and community college this fall, many of them and their families have questions about the new American Opportunity Tax Credit and how they can take advantage of this important new tax benefit.

he county’s students are back in school and an event last week reminds us of how important it is to take extra care on the roads.

Less than a week into the school year an elementary student was hit crossing the road to get on a bus. On Thursday morning a 17-year-old driver, traveling in the opposite direction of the bus on Route 757 in Goodview, struck the 9-year-old student. There’s too much at stake for us not to take the extra precautions that are needed.

I am shocked that anyone who grew up in Bedford County or City would publicly defend socialistic ideas in letters to the Bedford Bulletin. If the government owns the healthcare system it is Socialism. If it does not own the healthcare system but controls the healthcare system it is Fascism [Nazism] by definition. Obamacare is Socialism calling itself Universal Healthcare. Just what part of Socialism do the defenders of Socialism not understand?

It’s been quite an August. Over the course of the month, I’ve had the privilege of holding 21 town hall meetings throughout the 5th District – more than any other Member of Congress in the country. In total, nearly 5,000 people participated and the average length of each meeting was three hours. The topic of healthcare was definitely the number one concern, although people also brought up education, jobs, the federal deficit, and our nation’s energy policy.

The death of Senator Edward Kennedy, however not unexpected, has nonetheless left many of us with the familiar feeling that all our best heroes are dead or dying.

As one friend of mine put it when we were discussing his death last week, it seems that all of our lives we’ve been burying Kennedys. It’s been possible to feel, sometimes, that with each death we’ve lost a lot of our hopes for the country and the world. But that’s not what any of the Kennedy brothers would have wanted.

Normal people like sports. I, on the other hand, like politics and that makes Virginia a great place to live. We have elections every year!

This is because Virginia does not hold state and local elections in the same year that federal elections take place. Virginia’s elections follow a cycle that puts them in odd numbered years. This year, Virginia voters will elect a governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Virginia governors cannot succeed themselves, so we always get a new governor every four years.

It appears that President Obama and other Democrats may be backing away from the public option health insurance proposal. Hopefully, that is an indication that they are beginning to listen to the citizens opposing this proposal in the town hall meetings and other forums. This is much more productive than calling those citizens “mobs,” “unruly,” “stooges” and “un-American.”

As I continue visiting every county in the 5th District throughout the August recess, I continue to get feedback and questions from constituents about health care reform. Specifically, our neighbors want to know how health insurance reform will help rural America. Our rural areas have almost five percent higher uninsured rate than urban areas, and the current recession means more people are losing access to their employer-based health coverage.

America’s veterans have engaged in one of the noblest forms of public service: defending our nation. These brave, patriotic men and women have helped to liberate victims of oppression, spread democracy across the world and preserve the freedoms our nation was built upon. They have served on aircraft carriers in distant oceans, kept the peace on volatile borders, and patrolled the skies of international hot spots. Theirs is a service marked by humility and born of a love of country. For these selfless actions, we in turn have a responsibility to ensure that our

President Barack Obama has bent over backwards to try and be “bipartisan” about health care reform. From the beginning of his administration, and on every single issue, this president has made what most consider a noble effort to get support for his policies from the other party.

President Barack Obama’s radical overhaul of America’s health care system is running into a serious problem. The problem is that most people don’t want it, and most of those who don’t want it have made sure that their congressmen and senators know of their opposition.

Bedford has reason to be proud! As we watch the disruptive Town Hall meetings across the country, we can point with pride to the recent meeting held at Bedford Elementary School by our representative in the Fifth District, Tom Perriello.

Although he had expected to meet with constitutions on a one-to-one basis, he found over three hundred people waiting at the school to be heard.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has been engaged in a war to root out terrorism in order to protect the citizens of the U.S. from further terrorist attacks. During this war on terror, troops have captured and detained numerous terrorists who have taken up arms against the United States and innocent civilians. Many of these terrorists are being held as “enemy combatants” at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It has been wisely written that “volunteers are unpaid not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.” This column provides information on volunteer opportunities in our area, most require no special skills. To submit information for your non-profit group, contact Mary Wiley, Bedford Community Health Foundation, at 586-5292 or info@healthybedford.org.